We’ve made it to the final installment of our Revenue Glossary series. S through Z rounds out the language of modern revenue roles, from SaaS and Social Selling through to Win Rate and Year-over-Year comparisons.
If you’ve been following along, you now have a comprehensive reference for the terms that come up in sales, customer success, RevOps, and revenue leadership conversations every single day. Keep it handy.
Of course, there are more acronyms and abbreviations than we can list, so if we have missed something, reach out and let us know!
S
SaaS (Software as a Service)
Software delivered over the internet on a subscription basis, rather than something you install and own outright. Most modern revenue tools, CRMs, and platforms (including SentientPro) operate on a SaaS model. Understanding SaaS basics matters if you’re selling to or working within tech companies.
SDR (Sales Development Rep)
A rep focused on the early stages of the funnel, qualifying inbound leads and/or prospecting outbound to book meetings for Account Executives. SDRs are the engine room of many outbound revenue teams and often the starting point for a career in B2B sales.
Sales Cycle
The typical length of time from first contact to a closed deal. Sales cycles vary hugely depending on deal size, complexity, and industry. Knowing your average sales cycle length is essential for forecasting and managing your pipeline effectively.
Sales Velocity
A measure of how quickly deals move through the pipeline and generate revenue. Sales velocity is a function of the number of opportunities, win rate, average deal size, and sales cycle length. Improving any one of those four inputs improves sales velocity.
SLG (Sales-Led Growth)
A go-to-market model where a sales team drives acquisition and expansion. The counterpart to PLG (Product-Led Growth). Many businesses blend both approaches, using product features to build initial interest and sales teams to convert and expand.
Social Selling
Using social platforms, particularly LinkedIn, to build relationships, credibility, and trust with prospects over time. Social selling isn’t about sending mass connection requests with copy-pasted pitches. It’s about being genuinely useful and visible to the people you want to work with before you ever need anything from them.
SPIFF
A short-term sales incentive or bonus designed to motivate reps toward a specific goal, like hitting a product target or closing a batch of deals by a certain date. SPIFFs create urgency and focus, and work best when the goal is specific and the timeline is short.
SPIN Selling
A questioning methodology that guides a discovery conversation through four stages: Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff. SPIN Selling is designed to help reps uncover and build value through conversation, rather than simply presenting features and hoping something lands.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
A lead that the sales team has vetted and accepted as a genuine opportunity worth actively pursuing. The transition from MQL to SQL is a critical handoff point between marketing and sales. Alignment on what qualifies as an SQL prevents friction and finger-pointing later.
Stakeholder
Anyone with an interest in or influence over a buying decision. A stakeholder isn’t the same as a decision maker. Mapping all the stakeholders in an account early gives you a clearer picture of how the deal will actually move forward and who you need to bring onside.
T
TAM / SAM / SOM
Three nested measures of market size. Total Addressable Market (TAM) is everyone who could theoretically buy your product. Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion you could realistically reach. Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the share you can realistically win in the near term. Used in go-to-market planning and investor conversations alike.
Touchpoint
Any single interaction with a prospect or customer: a call, an email, a meeting, a message. Managing touchpoints well means being deliberate about timing, relevance, and value. Every touchpoint is a chance to build or erode trust.
Trial
A time-limited period during which a prospect uses your product, often for free, before deciding whether to buy. A well-structured trial has clear goals, active support from the sales or CS team, and defined success criteria agreed from the start.
U
Upsell
Selling an existing customer a higher-tier or expanded version of what they already have. Upselling is most effective when it’s genuinely in the customer’s interest and tied to a real need they’ve expressed.
Use Case
A specific way a customer applies your product to solve a real problem or achieve a particular goal. Understanding and speaking to the most relevant use cases for each prospect is a core skill in consultative selling.
V
Value Proposition
A clear statement of the value your product delivers, why it matters, and how it’s different from the alternatives. A strong value proposition speaks directly to the customer’s specific challenges and priorities. A weak one sounds the same as every competitor’s.
W, X, Y, Z
Warm Lead
A prospect who has shown interest or has some prior connection to your company, making them more receptive than a completely cold contact. Warm leads typically convert at higher rates, which is why marketing and inbound efforts matter even for outbound-heavy teams.
Whitespace
Untapped opportunity within an existing account: products, teams, or use cases you haven’t yet sold into. Identifying and developing whitespace is a key growth lever for account managers and CSMs, and often the most efficient way to drive expansion revenue.
Win Rate
The percentage of opportunities that end in a Closed-Won deal. Win rate is one of the most important measures of sales effectiveness. Improving win rate by even a few percentage points can have a bigger impact on revenue than adding significantly more pipeline.
YoY / MoM / WoW (Year-over-Year, Month-over-Month, Week-over-Week)
Comparison metrics that measure performance against the equivalent prior period. Used to spot trends, track growth, and understand whether results are improving or declining over time. These show up constantly in business reviews, investor decks, and performance conversations.
Writer here again, yeah, this got hard at the end, what do we come up with for Z? Help us out?
That’s a wrap on the Revenue Glossary series. Five parts, covering the full language of modern revenue roles from A to Z.
This is a living resource. If we’ve missed a term, or there’s something you’d like us to add, let us know.
